STIGUI
V-277030CAT II — Medium severitySV-277030r1148542_rule

The macOS system must enforce session lock no more than five seconds after screen saver is started.

Rule version APPL-26-000003 · STIG v1 · 2026-09-01

Discussion

A screen saver must be enabled and the system must be configured to require a password to unlock once the screen saver has been on for a maximum of five seconds.

An unattended system with an excessive grace period is vulnerable to a malicious user.

Check

Verify the macOS system is configured to initiate a session lock within five seconds of the screen saver starting with the following command:

/usr/bin/osascript -l JavaScript << EOS function run() { let delay = ObjC.unwrap($.NSUserDefaults.alloc.initWithSuiteName('com.apple.screensaver')\ .objectForKey('askForPasswordDelay')) if ( delay <= 5 ) { return("true") } else { return("false") } } EOS

If the result is not "true", this is a finding.

Fix

Configure the macOS system to initiate a session lock within five seconds of the screen saver starting by installing the "com.apple.screensaver" configuration profile.

Identifiers

Group ID
V-277030
Group title
SRG-OS-000028-GPOS-00009
Rule ID
SV-277030r1148542_rule
Check ID
C-81185r1148540_chk
Fix ID
F-81090r1148541_fix